Agentic Commerce Series · Melbourne

When an agent is the decision-maker, the rules change

AI agents are no longer just tools that assist human decisions. They are starting to make purchasing recommendations, and in some cases the purchase itself, on behalf of consumers. The question for 2026 is not whether to prepare, but how. So we are putting the people who see this shift from opposite sides on one stage: the marketers fighting for visibility inside AI answers, and the engineers building the systems that do the choosing.

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60 seats per city, first come, first served

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WHEN

Thursday 1 October 2026

5:30 to 8:30pm

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WHERE

Mantel Hub · Mantel Group, Melbourne

WHO'S IN THE ROOM

Founders, C-suite and heads of department across eCommerce, digital, SEO, performance, CX, data and engineering. People who want the how, not just the what.

COST

Free for all industry peers. First come, first served, then a waitlist.

WHAT CHANGES

Your SEO doesn't matter if an AI never crawls your page

Your ad creative doesn't matter if there's no human to see it

Feed quality, structured data, reviews and brand authority become the new battleground

Attribution breaks entirely because there's no trackable click

The panel

Four panellists, one moderator

This is the sharp end of AI search in Australia: the people running search for REA Group and JB Hi-Fi, and a Google Developer Expert building the systems that do the choosing. One side fights to be the answer. The other writes the logic that picks it. They will not always agree, and that is the point.

Lovee Jain

Senior Software Engineer

GDG Melbourne Organiser

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Nitin Karunakaran

National Head of SEO

Alley Group (part of Nunn Media) · as featured by Semrush & Preezie

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Rahul Sengupta

Melbourne SEO & GEO Lead

Prosperity Media · as featured in Mumbrella, B&T & Campaign Brief

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Jine Wu

Senior SEO Manager

REA Group · as featured on Google Search Live Central, Semrush & Search Marketing Summit

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Moderated by Wylan Ho

Founder, Kindred Talent

Building a trusted digital referral network with deep connections across SEO, Paid Media and Digital, linking people together through events and moments.

Discussion

Three themes on the table

Not what's coming. What to do about it on Monday.

Getting found

Visibility when the buyer is a machine

Before anything converts, you have to be on the shortlist an agent builds. What signals decide whether an assistant recommends you over a competitor, how much of the old playbook still applies, and what can you actually influence today?

Getting through

From recommendation to conversion

Being recommended is only half the job. What happens to your funnel when the thing reading your product page will not be moved by a hero image, when the comparison happens somewhere you cannot see, and when the click you used to measure never arrives?

Getting it built

Where marketing meets engineering

Almost none of this ships from one team. What do marketers need from engineering, what do engineers need from marketing, and how do the two get something into production together instead of trading tickets across a backlog?

The format

Small circle, big impact

A free evening for industry peers in Melbourne, first come, first served. A panel discussion that goes deep, audience Q&A, and open networking with people carrying the same question back to very different teams.

It is part of Kindred Talent's national Agentic Commerce Series, running across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane through spring 2026. Each city features a locally relevant panel and sponsor, mixing the lenses that matter: SEO, paid media and engineering.

Sydney · 24 Sep Melbourne · 1 Oct Brisbane · 8 Oct